


The Unwitting Deathbringer

by PageofD



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Implied Canon Death, M/M, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-20
Updated: 2014-06-20
Packaged: 2018-02-05 10:42:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1815652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PageofD/pseuds/PageofD
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave is behind the prototyping of Becsprite. When will he realise how far the repercussions will spread?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Unwitting Deathbringer

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the first HSWC Main Round, which means technically it shouldn't be posted until the voting is over because of the anonymity clause.  
> But my team was disqualified from the round because the cut wasnt done properly and our friendleader went away before she fixed it.  
> There's also a couple of pictures that go with this (done by the aforementioned friendleader) but i dont have a copy of them so theyre not here.

When a piece of machinery is dropped for the third time in a row, this time almost on top of her, Jade pesters John angrily, demanding to know what’s going on.

\--gardenGnostic [GG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB]--

GG: JOHN! QUIT DROPPING SHIT! >:(  
GG: are you doing it on purpose??  
GG: cause its not like youre having connection issues.  
GG: i can see youre connected perfectly.  
GG: you just keep dropping things :(  
GG: john?  
GG: fine. don’t answer >:(  
GG: ill just find another server player.

\--gardenGnostic [GG] ceased pestering ectoBiologist [EB]--

She pushes her laptop away from her with an irritated sigh. This wasn’t supposed to be so hard… Jade flops backwards on her bed, head hanging off the edge so she can see the view out of her high window, showing the clear blue sky with a few far-off specks being the only indication of the approaching Armageddon.

Jade sits back up and scrolls down her chumroll, wondering who she can ask to be her server player. John’s out, obviously, and from what he was saying, Rose’s connection was really really bad, so there was no point in asking her. That leaves Dave. Jade wonders if it would that even work. She was his server player so logically it shouldn’t, but then again, the game hasn’t followed logic much so far, why should it be different now? Jade clicks on the lit-up chumhandle, typing into the chat box when it opens.

\--gardenGnostic [GG] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG]-- 

GG: dave.  
GG: dave I need you to help me  
TG: what can this fine piece of ass do for you today harley?  
GG: I need you to be my server  
TG: kinky  
GG: dave!! Not like that!!  
GG: i mean my server player  
TG: isn’t egbert your server player?  
GG: he was  
GG: but he keeps dropping out, and not because of his connection  
TG: ill see what I can do  
GG: okay! be quick dave! :)

Jade leans back on her hands and waits, looking across her room towards the stairwell. It’s been a while since she last saw Bec, and half the equipment is down stairs. She resolves to have Dave move it all up to her, or maybe into the atrium, when he can.

A moment later her laptop chimes with a new pesterchum message.

TG: i need a new server disc  
GG: cant you just alchemise a new one?  
TG: nah  
TG: the captcha code is illegible as fuck  
TG: but i know how we can get one  
TG: you see that intelli-whatsit laserface thing?  
GG: yeah but its really expensive :/  
TG: right  
TG: well were gonna need it  
TG: it can read the captcha and make a new disc  
GG: but we don’t have enough to deploy it!  
GG: howre we gonna get it?  
TG: ill have the grist in a few hours  
TG: brb  


\--turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering gardenGnostic [GG]-- 

GG: no! dave!  
GG: i don’t think there’ll be  
GG: fuck

\--turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering gardenGnostic [GG]--

TG: and by a few hours i mean a few seconds  
TG: for you at least  
TG: i have the grist  
TG: deploy it  
GG: how do you have enough already?? :o  
TG: time shenanigans  
GG: oh  


Jade tabs over to the still-open game window which shows Dave’s apartment. She mouses over the top corner of the screen, opening the deployment menu, and selects the Intellibeam Laserstation. She’s surprised that there is enough buildgrist for it – more than enough actually, way more than enough – and pulls the machine out of the menu, her cursor holding it mid-air.

GG: where do you want it?  
TG: idgaf  
TG: wherever it fits  


She watches on screen as Dave gives a shrug and gestures vaguely around his room before pushing a pile of papers and books off his desk.

TG: tada  
TG: put it there

She places the machine on the desk with a heavy thud that Dave feels through his feet. He steps closer to the newly deployed machine, crouching a little to examine it in an attempt to understand how it worked.

GG: so why do we need this?  
TG: it reads captcha codes  
TG: which is mostly dumb and useless  
TG: but its exactly what we need rn  
GG: so how does it work?  
TG: we gotta start with a disc  


Jade watches as Dave crosses to his computer, ejecting and captchaloging his server disc. He then pulls the card holding the disc out of his sylladex and carries it over to the Laserstation.

TG: now we get the machine to scan the captcha

Dave slots the card under the scanner of the Laserstation and slips his shades up to read the code through the eyepieces.

TG: now that we have the code  
TG: we can put it into the designix upgrade on my alchemiter  
TG: and then we have the server disc 

Jade watches with wavering interest as Dave slots a captchaloge card – one containing a pile of destroyed smuppets – into the Punch Designix and types in the captcha code from the server disc card. 

A disc with the Sburb Spirograph design appears on the Alchemiter and Dave scoops it up, darting back downstairs to his computer faster than Jade can follow on her screen. When she catches up to him, with a lot of awkward click and dragging across her trackpad, he’s already seated at his computer installing the new server hardware.

TG: as soon as this is all installed ill connect  
TG: then we should be all good  
GG: will it work?  
TG: will what work?  
GG: you being my server  
GG: i was your server  
GG: so it might not work with you being mine  
TG: nah  
TG: itll work  
TG: trust me

Jade bites her lip anxiously. Her inclination is to trust Dave, but what if he’s wrong? What if it doesn’t work? Her fingers tap against the sides of her laptop as her brain flood her with ideas of what could go wrong, what could happen when it does, and, most frighteningly, the many ways in which she of Dave could die because of it.

TG: installed and ready to go  
TG: and jade?  
GG: yes??  
TG: quit worrying.  
TG: as your resident timeline expert i can tell you that this is the alpha timeline  
TG: and that means neither of us die here

Jade’s lip slips out from between her teeth as a lopsided smile spreads across her face at Dave’s reassurance.

GG: okay.  
GG: thanks dave :D  
TG: no big  
TG: ready to start?  
GG: yeah!!  
GG: lets go :D  
GG: oh hey  
GG: dave?  
GG: can you move the stuff john put down to the atrium?  
TG: sure  
TG: wheres the atrium?

Jade sighs so heavily that Dave can see the movement on his screen, and climbs off her bed, captchaloguing her laptop and making her way to the atrium. When she gets there she shifts some of the pots around while Dave’s cursor moves the tables full of pots, clearing an area for the various machinery. Jade makes herself a cosy corner to wait in while Dave deploys the machines, and plays a quick game of Memory to pull her laptop back out.

GG: i think this is enough space  
TG: time for deployment?  
GG: time for deployment.

Dave’s brow furrows as he searches the house for the already deployed machinery, finding it slowly as its spread all over the house.

TG: holy fuck  
TG: how did egbert fuck up so bad?  
TG: the stuff is literally everywhere

He moves the Cruxtruder first, slotting it into an empty corner of the atrium, quickly dropping a couple of plants on top of it to open it.

TG: bond with your sprite while i move the rest of the stuff  
GG: but dave  
GG: i cant understand it :/

Dave shifts his screen from the atrium, switching back to the room containing the Alchemiter. While Dave’s attention is focused elsewhere, Bec appears beside Jade, pushing himself against her shoulder in an attempt to gain her attention.

“Hey Bec! There you are boy! Who’s a good dog??” Jade exclaims, discarding her laptop in favour of scratching her dog’s head vigorously. Bec barks happily, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth.

Dave returns to the atrium, Alchemiter in tow, and places it down next to the Cruxtruder. The following thud echoes around the room a bit, startling both Jade and Bec, who growls and darts to the corner, barking viciously at the air above his head.

“Bec! Down boy! What are you even barking at?” Jade calls, ignoring the ding of her laptop in favour of pulling Bec away from the corner.

TG: harley  
TG: your dog is barking right at the viewport  
TG: what the fuck?

Jade gets Bec calmed to the point where his barks become a soft growl, and she turns back to her laptop, reading the messages and glancing at the spot Bec was barking at.

GG: really?  
GG: that’s weird.

Jade fixes her gaze on the corner and shrugs, while on the other end Dave feels like she’s looking directly at him, though he knows she can’t see the viewport.

TG: quit that harley  
TG: gonna creep a guy out  
TG: not me of course  
TG: but a lesser man would be creeped out  
GG: haha  
TG: just gotta deploy the totem lathe and the punch designix and were good to go  
GG: lets do it!!

Dave places the Totem Lathe first, along the back wall of the atrium, to more barking from Bec who gets a solid whap over the head from Jade so he stops.

GG: oops  
GG: should pee before this really kicks off  
GG: brb  
GG: AND NO WATCHING!!!  
TG: like id watch  
TG: ptch

Dave watches Jade scurry out of the atrium, and decides to deploy the Designix while she’s away, under Bec’s watchful eye. He selects the Designix and places it against the back wall. He shifts it to the left a little, and then starts shifting it back to the right just as Bec jumps at it. Dave can only watch on in confusion as the dog bounces off the machinery and gets pushed into the kernelsprite.

Dave places the Designix and waits for Bec to appear elsewhere in the room, not believing that that accident would prototype the sprite. Instead he watches the sprite change into Becsprite and swears softly. Jade is gonna kill him.

“Oh fuck.” 

Jade returns from her toilet break and heads straight to her computer, not noticing the way her dog now has a spritetail and is floating three feet off the floor

GG: everything ready?  
TG: uh  
TG: apart from the pre punched card yeah  
GG: well get that out and well start

Dave pauses for a moment – did she really not see? – then selects the pre-punched card, dropping it by the Totem Lathe.

TG: weve already wasted a lot of time  
TG: we gotta hustle on this bit  
TG: heres the cruxite

Jade barely catches the Cruxite dowel as Dave throws it at her, and spares a moment to shake her head at him before carrying it over to the Lathe and inserting it.

GG: careful dave!!  
GG: i cant get into the game if ive been brained by a rod of cruxite!!  
TG: my bad

Dave half-watches the Lathe carving the Cruxite, the other half of his attention focused on Bec who’s floating around the roof, barking at anything and everything.

GG: this reminds me  
GG: dave  
GG: do you know where bec went?  
GG: i can hear him barking, but I cant see him :(  
TG: uh  
TG: nope.  
TG: no clue

Dave scratches the back of his neck awkwardly, glad that Jade can’t see him. If she could she’d know he was lying faster than a sniffer dog could find drugs and they don’t have time for him to explain, that’d just have to wait until Jade got to the medium.

GG: huh  
GG: you sure?  
TG: yeah, 100%  
TG: now get a move on harley  
TG: we haven’t got all day  
GG: yeah yeah  
GG: give me a moment

Jade gets down on all fours, looking under the tables and crawling around to look behind the pots. “Bec! Bequerel! Where are you boy? BEC!!” She calls, looking in every corner of the room. Dave can’t help it. He starts to laugh. Just watching Jade crawl around on the floor while her dog explores the til now unknown reaches of the roof, it’s hilarious. Before he knows it Dave’s on the floor, having to pull himself up the desk to type.

TG: jade  
TG: fuck  
TG: harley  
TG: we don’t have time to be fucking around  
TG: your devilbeast will follow you to the medium  
TG: just get yourself there  
GG: if you say so…

Jade carries the carved Cruxite to the Alchemiter, placing it on the pedestal and watching as it starts to glow.

GG: what do you think itll make?  
TG: i dunno harley  
TG: i have no fucking idea.

There’s a blinding flash of light and when the spots clear from their eyes, both Jade and Dave can see the huge green tree, a Bec-shaped piñata hanging from the lowest branch. Jade barely gets time to see it as a green blindfold appears shortly after the tree, tying itself around her eyes.

“Oh shit” Dave mutters to himself. “If she hits this I’ll kiss her.”

Jade has a split second of blind panic before realising what’s happening.

“Pinata. Blindfold. Gotta hit it. Can’t miss.” She pulls out her strife specibus, her favourite rifle materialising in her hand, and begins aiming from memory. 

Dave watches from his screen as Jade takes aim just below the piñata, muttering directions though she can’t hear him. “Up a little Jade. No, no, too high. That’s better, now to the right a little….” It’s almost eerie how Jade’s movements match up with Dave’s mutterings, but he’s too concerned to consider that at that moment, more focused on get Jade out before the looming Armageddon hits.

“Perfect.” They mutter in unknowing unison as the barrel of the rifle lines up with the piñata.

Jade takes a moment to steady herself, centring her balance and shifting into the right position. She takes a deep breath in and shoots on the exhale, hitting the piñata in the dead centre of the head.

On Dave’s screen her house disappears in a flash of green, leaving his screen to fade to black as she enters the medium.

TG: you make it okay harley?  
GG: yeah  
GG: were here okay  
GG: but dave?  
TG: yeah?  
GG: why is bec in my sprite?  
TG: he jumped in it  
TG: well  
TG: jumped at the machine which punted him into the sprite  
TG: but you know  
TG: hes just a dog  
TG: not like itll make that much of a difference

\--ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG]--

EB: dave!!  
EB: what did you do??  
TG: depends when youre talkin about  
TG: you gotta admit man  
TG: thats a pretty vague statement  
TG: i could answer many many ways  
TG: like yes sir, i did write that amazingly ironic comic  
TG: glad to know you liked it  
TG: or  
EB: dave!!  
EB: shut up for a second!!  
EB: what did you do when you were serving jade?  
TG: kinky  
EB: DAVE!!  
TG: heh  
TG: i put the machines out  
TG: accidentally prototyped her dog  
TG: helped her into the medium  
TG: you know  
TG: the usual stuff for a server player to do  
TG: why?  
EB: apparently we made an unbeatable boss  
EB: and he calls himself bec noir  
EB: and he destroyed a whole lot of stuff  
EB: and killed tons of people!!  
EB: and its because of bec being prototyped!!  
TG: who told you that?  
EB: karkat did  
TG: how does karkat know all that, huh?  
TG: I bet hes making it up to fuck with you  
TG: don’t listen to him egbert  
EB: but dave  
EB: he sounded really mad about it  
EB: and he said that bec can teleport and thats how bec noir got to their reward  
EB: and how bec noir destroyed their reward  
TG: egbert, man  
TG: listen to yourself  
TG: do you really think a dog could teleport?  
TG: especially the devilbeast that is bequerel harley?  
TG: cause im pretty sure that karkat is bullshitting you  
EB: i dunno dave…  
EB: he did sound pretty mad…  
TG: karkat always sounds mad  
TG: its his usual state of being  
TG: and anyway  
TG: chances are he fucked everything over himself and hes just looking for something else to blame  
TG: might as well blame our accidental prototyping instead of his own failures  
EB: are you sure dave?  
TG: surer than a beach  
TG: thats how sure I am  
EB: youre such a dork dave  
EB: that was a terrible pun

\--ectoBiologist [EB] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG]--

TG: take that back egbert!

Wow Karkat was a real jerk, Dave thought, what the hell kind of difference would having Bec as part of a sprite make? Jaspers ended up in Rose’s sprite and that did shit all. Dave sighed. Ah well. Everyone was cool and knew what was going on, Egbert had been convinced that Karkat was talking out his ass, all was well. Well, as ‘well’ as anything could be in a world-ending game.

****2 years and a lot of game play later****

“Okay, so you know how Jade has dog ears now?” Dave asks the more-than-slightly-tipsy Rose on the couch next to him.

“Yesh. They’re relly *hic* really funny.” She slurs back at him.

“Well that’s my fault.” He sits back and waits for it to sink into Rose’s alcohol-soaked brain.

“Nooooo. Really?” She gasps, shaking her head in over-dramatic motions.

“Yeah, really. Egbert was awol so I had to take over as Harley’s server player. And as I was putting out all the machinery her dog decides to jump at one of them and he bounces right off it into the kernelsprite. Jade was outta the room on a potty break and when she comes back Bec’s hangin’ round the ceiling barking like crazy.” Rose falls off the couch laughing at Dave’s story.

“Whash.. wat hapend nxet?” She manages to ask between her laughter.

“She asks me-“ Dave stops for a moment, barely keeping his own laughter under control, “She asks me ‘Dave, have you seen Bec? I can hear him but I can’t see him’ and then she starts crawling round the floor calling out ‘Bec! Bec? Where are you boy?’ while I’m falling off my chair laughing cause I punted him into the sprite and he’s hanging around the ceiling.” Dave finishes the story with a laugh, looking fondly, but sadly, down at Rose while she rolls on the floor laughing.

“Did you just say you prototyped Jade’s lusus?” Karkat asks from where he’d been lurking in the doorway.

“Uh, no. I said I prototyped her dog.” Dave says slowly, rolling his eyes behind his shades.

“Jade’s barkbeast which just so happens to be a First Guardian? Strider, please tell me that not even you are stupid enough to fuck up so catastrophically.” Karkat snaps, venturing further into the room in his anger. “Actually, no. I can believe you fucked up that bad. You wanna know why, Strider? Because you’re a dick-licking imbecile with his head so far up his wastechute that he can’t even tell what a First fucking Guardian looks like, much less know how much shit is going to get irreparably damaged by the prototyping of said guardian. I bet you didn’t even think about the consequences past your own little band of players. Well guess what Strider, you even fucked up there. You know that thing chasing us right this very second through the void? That devilbeast only exists because of you and your multitude of ignorant decisions that led to the prototyping of the, guess what. THE FIRST NOOKBLISTERING GUARDIAN.” Karkat stops in his rant, slightly red in the face and panting for breath.

“Woah there Kitkat, let’s not get hasty there. Bec’s just a dog. Not a ‘First Guardian’ or whatever the fuck you said he was.” Dave says slowly, hands raised palm-out in a pacifying gesture.

“Not a First Guardian my ass.” Karkat growls. “He can teleport using the powers of the green sun. Isn’t that enough indication? And put your grubby paws down, Strider. No way are you flipping this pale by papping me.”

“Flipping this? Flipping what?” Dave asks, lowering his hands with a shrug.

“This!” Karkat gestures violently between the two of them. “The pitch flirting! The denying I’m right even though I obviously am!”

“Pitch flirting!? Don’t drag me into your freaky-ass quadrants!” Dave snaps, rising to his feet, vaguely aware of Rose’s sprawled position on the floor.

“You know what Strider? Fuck you. Fuck you right up the wastechute with a rusty post. I hope you get tetanus or an equally deadly human disease.” Karkat growls out, turning on his heel and leaving the room, mumbling about humans and not appreciating a good pitch solicitation when they get one.

“Fuck you too Vantas!” Dave shouts at the retreating troll, needing to have the last word.

“I fucking hate your pale bulge-fondling ass!” Karkat shouts back, flipping Dave off as he passes out of sight past the doorframe.

“Fucking hell.” Dave mutters to himself while Rose snickers from the floor.

“He’sh rit y’know.” She slurs.

“Sober up Lalonde.” Dave says before leaving the room through the door the troll didn’t leave through.


End file.
